Matt Jones

Meet Matt Jones!

Matt started with Hardee’s as his first job in 1996 when he was 16. Not too long after, he graduated high school early and at the age of 18, he was promoted to manager. In 2000, he moved into a District Manager position where he stayed for 9 years. In 2009, when his stores became part of a much larger company, Matt accepted the General Manager position for our store in Albia, Iowa. In October 2016, Matt was again promoted to District Manager, a position he still currently holds. Matt mentioned that he has thought a few times over the years about looking into a new profession, but feels all of his hard work and knowledge of the company would be wasted, so he is happy to stay and continue growing here.

Matt is extremely involved with youth sports outside of work. He the baseball coach for the junior high, along with the girls basketball coach for 6th-8th grade. He works with the Junior and High School football teams as well. Matt says that he loves kids and they always seem to flock to him. Even though his son has moved on from his team, he is still happy to continue coaching. Each football season, Hardee’s provides food for Rally Alley. They set up a big tent with games and burgers and last year, they were able to raise $1200 for the Albia Booster Club. This club provides instruments, books, and sporting equipment to local schools.

Half-time Break – 7th Grade Team

Matt primarily grew up in Chicago, but moved to Albia when he was 16. He has a 14 year son named Zack and recently got engaged on Christmas Day to his fiance, Stephanie. Matt made it very clear that his whole family is extremely close. Not only do they spend a lot of time together, most of them have worked at Hardee’s at one point! His mom, sister, and sister-in-law are all current managers, his brother was actually his manager when he started, and his dad was also a manager at one point. Because of this connection, Matt feels that this is almost a family business and they work to run it as such.

His family is in a bowling league every Sunday night, and they attend the local Lutheran Church every Saturday night. In fact, because so many of his family members work at Hardee’s and found it difficult to all take off Sunday mornings, their local church added a Saturday night service just for them! The family also likes spending time at Rathbun Lake and during the TriStar annual picnic, other employees get to head out on the pontoon for “Captains Matt’s Boat Tours”. The entire Jones family has been such an irreplaceable part to our Hardee’s family in Iowa that Tom Trotter jokes about writing a book on leadership and dedicating a whole chapter to them!

Childhood Dream Job: Loan Officer at a bank. Matt decided to get his bachelors degree a few years after high school so that his son could never say, “you didn’t go to college, why should I?” but he still decided to continue his career with Hardee’s.

Little Known Fact: He likes karaoke! He actually got to sing “We Are Family” with Buddy in Charleston recently!

Favorite Charity: Matt is a Shriner, so he enjoys any event that is able to raise money for the Shriners Hospital for Children.